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Doctors using sonography for early diagnosis of heart disease

Pellikka is in the city to attend a three-day conference ‘Echo-Nagpur 2012’, a live meet on cardiac imaging and clinical cardiology, being organized jointly by Nagpur Echo Summit and Cardiological Society of India, Vidarbha chapter. Elaborating on ASE’s work, she said the society has 15,000 US members and 2,000 international doctor members. One of the main jobs of the society is to frame guidelines and standards in the field of echocardiography.

As part of its international missions and international surveillance programmes, ASE conducted 1,030 echocardiography tests using the latest equipment at Sirsa in Haryana earlier this year. The society would be holding another round of such preventive investigations in December. The first round of investigations showed the incidence of moderate to severe disease in one-third of the screened persons during a religious camp. “Next, we would be holding similar mission camps in Vietnam and Africa. Such investigations help us in standardizing the procedure,” said Pellikka.

Dr Partho Sengupta, associate professor and director of non-invasive cardiology at Irvine School of Medicine, University of California, and an alumnus of Government Medical College and Hospital, said that though ASE has been active for 25 years, it has taken up many international projects and collaborations in the recent past in the form of fellowships and travel by experts. The society spends as much as $25-30,000 on such projects. Young investigator award is one such programme to promotes talent. He pointed out that while coronary heart disease (CAD), which was once an epidemic in USA, is now on the decline, it continues to be the number one killer of women in USA.

Dr Shantanu Sengupta, one of the programme directors of Echo-Summit said the three-day conference being attended by 300 delegates has a live workshop on cardiovascular ultrasound, which is fast evolving as the stethoscope of cardiologists. “In India, the reasons for cardiac diseases are much different than the western world. Obesity, tobacco and diet are some of the biggest causes of heart diseases at an early age in a large section of society. But if younger people go for regular check ups with a cardiologist, the disease can be prevented from progressing further with right guidance,” he said.

Paul Khunkhun, serving Southern California since 1998. Paul is the owner of MDIS. He is a Board Certified Ultrasound Sonographer with RDCS and RVT credentialing. He is also pending ICAEL accreditation.